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About LEARN Academy

Location: San Diego

LEARN Academy is a full stack web development bootcamp in San Diego, CA. LEARN Academy teaches Javascript and React for front-end and Ruby on Rails for back-end development. Graduates will also be fluent in HTML and CSS, core programming essentials, and... Read More

Courses

Full-time JavaScript

Cost: $14,500
Duration: 16 weeks
Locations: San Diego
In-person Only
Course Description:

LEARN academy provides alumni access to slack channels, meetup groups, and hiring network. Multiple events are planned on a monthly basis to bring together our community, as well as hiring events and workshops designed to help new graduates and more skilled alumni.

Subjects:
CSS, HTML, Ruby on Rails, React.js, Node.js, Express.js, JavaScript

Jumpstart

Cost: $249
Locations: San Diego
In-person Only
Course Description:

LEARN jumpstart is an introduction to modern web development boiled down to a single weekend. We’ll cover the basics of programming, the tools involved and really help you understand if software development is something you can be passionate about. We cover HTML/CSS, Javascript and an intro to the tools and techniques of the trade. You’ll come away with real-world skills and a path forward into a development career and a better understanding of the developers you work with. Whether you just need an introduction to programming for your job, you are thinking about studying online or want to go to a more complete bootcamp, LEARN jumpstart will help you figure out what your next step is.

If you do enroll in the LEARN academy, your LEARN jumpstart tuition will be discounted from your bootcamp tuition.

Subjects:
CSS, HTML, JavaScript

LEARN Academy Reviews

Average Ratings (All Programs)

LEARN Academy logo

4.72/5 (36 reviews)

Rudy Becker
Full Stack Web Developer | Graduated: 2020

1/29/2021

Course
Full-time JavaScript

Overall

Curriculum

Job Support

"LEARN: The most well-rounded and experienced bootcamp in the San Diego area"

When deciding on which coding bootcamp there are several key factors when need to consider, and in this review, I will explain those key factors and how LEARN Academy proved to be the best professional educational decision for my goals. - In-person vs.... Read More

Lisa
Jr. Web Developer | Graduated: 2020

8/28/2020

Course
Full-time JavaScript

Overall

Curriculum

Job Support

"Career Change"

LEARN Academy helped give me the confidence and network to make a career change into a totally different industry. Now, about 7 months after graduating, 75% of my cohort have jobs in the tech industry. The internship is highly valuable, as many of the... Read More

The bootcamp is very fast-paced. I was glad that I had studied some HTML/CSS/JavaScript prior to starting the course as I think it would have been very difficult for me to keep up otherwise. I think one of the best parts about LEARN is the supportive and collaborative environment. I never felt intimidated to ask questions and my cohort still keeps in touch with regular Zoom meetings even despite the pandemic. Before I started the bootcamp, I mistakenly thought that through completing a bootcamp, I would learn everything I need to know. I have since learned that being a developer means continued learning and growth and I feel like LEARN Academy gave me the foundation to continue on my lifetime of learning.

April Rieger
Junior Software Developer | Graduated: 2020

8/28/2020

Course
Full-time JavaScript

Overall

Curriculum

Job Support

"Invest in Yourself!"

LEARN Academy is such a great Bootcamp. The way this Bootcamp is run makes learning fun, easy, and stress-free. I was laid off during the pandemic and it was a no-brainer to make the decision to join LEARN Academy and invest in myself. Even though I had... Read More

Anonymous
Software Engineer Intern | Graduated: 2020

7/23/2020

Course
Full-time JavaScript

Overall

Curriculum

Job Support

"Honest Comprehensive Review"

Pros: Nice location, instructors are nice.
1. The only saving grace for this program is that you get to intern for a company and get real work experience. A lot of the people I met had great internships (myself included) where I learned more than in 3~... Read More

Cons:
1. Instructors are all alumni from this program.
All 3 instructors graduated less than 2 years ago and now they are in charge of teaching the new cohorts how to code. When I asked Hillary (the person who "interviews" you before you officially start the program) who the instructors would be she responded, "The instructor is someone who has 15+ years of experience in this field and is very knowledgeable" only later to find out that he retired and taught us maybe 1 course out of the entire class. The "lead" instructor was this guy who looked high all the time and had no idea what he was talking about. And about 90% of all lectures were done by the Associate Instructors (again alumni who graduated with less than 2 years of actual developer experience. Some of then never actually got a job and just got hired back so LEARN could inflate their hired numbers)
When asking questions, instructors often times would say "Let me get back to you" and never really get back to you with a coherent answer. Often times during lectures, there were students who would correct the "instructors" because they were making errors or doing something incorrectly.

2. Job Hire.
In my initial interview with Hillary, I asked what the success rate was for students. She told me that the percentage of all alumni was around 84%~. I asked specifically about the previous cohorts and still got that same number. Fast-forward to "Professional Development Week", the career coach person throws out the same exact number despite maybe 2 months going by. Then fast-forward again, I have completed my internship, I reach out to ask about employment numbers and get the exact same number. There are no specifics, no real data, no concrete evidence ever presented. Just a random statistic that never changes. So in about a 4-5 month span, the success rate has stayed exactly the same? Yea I don't buy it and neither should you.

3. Cohort Group
There is no pre-screening or assessment done before you do this program. Looking back, that should have been a huge red flag that LEARN just wants your money. People in my cohort ranged from being geniuses and having comp-sci backgrounds to people who could barely type. As someone who was middle of the road and understood the concepts after putting in extra work, it was difficult to learn because LEARN operates using paired-programming. Some days I would get steamrolled by the students who already had tech backgrounds and they just wanted to finish the assignment. Other days it was like pulling teeth trying to explain a topic to a student who didn't know the difference between JavaScript and Ruby. Overall, it was difficult to learn topics consistently and would require HOURS of extra work outside of class to try and understand it. (Also in part because the instructors couldn't/wouldn't help us --> it was part of the learning process )

4. Outdated Technology
LEARN would always try and flex and say things like "We are constantly evolving and teaching things that meet the demand of the marketplace" in regards to their curriculum. However, they have been teaching the same React/Ruby on Rails curriculum for the last 2 years at least. Newbies reading this should know that Ruby and Ruby on Rails is not big anymore and definitely not big in San Diego, Orange County, or LA (where I am assuming most people attending this program would be from). Rails is popular in San Francisco and New York and even then, you find other programming back-end languages like Java, Python, and Go WAY more in job postings than Ruby on Rails. Is Ruby/RoR a good skill to have? Sure. It's easy to learn but when you’re applying for that Junior position that requires Java or Python, they're not going to choose you. Also, half-way through the program, the instructors decided to stop checking in on student progress. Students had lots of questions and nothing every got answered and we just moved on, wasting about 2 weeks’ worth of projects that got no real answer. Overall, if you're paying this much money for a boot camp, you should be learning the latest and greatest not something that was popular 10 years ago.

5. Professional Development Week
You have a whole week break during the cohort where you update your professional appearance on LinkedIn and build a portfolio. You get lecture after lecture on topics ranging on elevator pitches, updating your resume, and updating your LinkedIn. If you want to save yourself the time and energy doing this, just find a portfolio on YouTube and spruce it up and make it your own. Go on LEARN Academy on linked in and just search any alumni (literally any of them that have it) and you can see the paragraph that every single alum has in relation to what they did at LEARN. Also, you get a professional headshot done for all your professional online presence. The Elevator Pitch is just a YouTube video, the portfolio template they give you, and again, you're going to have the exact same blurb as anyone who has ever attended LEARN on your LinkedIn. At the end of the week, you send your resume to Bryan who is the career coach person for feedback. The feedback is honestly not even remotely useful because after independently testing that resume against job postings and resume critics from real developers, my resume would have been instantly scrapped and ghosted.

Conclusion: Would I do LEARN Academy again? Absolutely not. There's mediocre student support wrapped in "we are a family" mentality which means their niceness covers up the fact that they are in fact, pretty useless. From teaching yourself, working against other cohort students to try and figure out issues when pair programming, and doing the bare minimum when it comes to updating your social presence, it’s obvious that LEARN is not in it to truly help students succeed and just want your money. Nobody, from the CEO down to the instructors, really has a solid tech/developer background and it shows. I would highly encourage you to consider doing another program that is actually student-focused, has actual instructors that have experience in the industry, and a large reliable network. You are paying 14-20k for this and it should be worth that. But in reality, you are paying 14-20k for an 1-month internship with a local tech company which really makes no sense.

Official Response from LEARN Academy

We're always open to constructive criticism and are always changing and adapting our program to make sure we're giving our students the best possible experience. I'm saddened to see that you were so disappointed with the program and most importantly didn't... Read More

If any one reading this review would like to talk about any of these concerns please let me know and I'm happy to have a transparent conversation with you.

Dante M
Graduated: 2019

9/11/2019

Overall

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Job Support

"Developer, Developer, Developer"

Learn Academy is a fast-paced program for getting practical experience with many different relevant technologies in a short amount of time. The immersive portion happens quickly, students are exposed to Git, data structures, and we were pair programming... Read More

The instructors are fantastic. The student to teacher ratio is very favorable for student-teacher interactions, and they were consistently pivotal in getting me on track with the material on pace to get through the assessments. There is a lot of information, so be 100% prepared to have no life while you're working through the curriculum. I thought 100 hours a week would be an exaggeration, but I was consistently logging 95-100 hours each week studying the material straight through the weekend.

The past four months have been a grueling yet highly rewarding experience. You get out of it what you put into it, and you have to put a lot into it if you want to get through the totality of the curriculum, but at the end, you will have the skills and confidence necessary to land your first position as a developer.

Jess
Junior Engineer | Graduated: 2019

7/2/2019

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"Full Recommendation"

If you're a hopeful web developer or engineer in San Diego, Learn is the only bootcamp I recommend. A couple primary reasons: 1. internship and career services 2. program's willingness to change.

The internship experience speaks for itself. To have the... Read More

I also mention the program's willingness to accept feedback as a highlight - and it absolutely is. Prior to attending Learn, I worked at a university managing a program and have real understanding of how difficult it can be to modify classroom focus or process. Learn does a really impressive job of soliciting and responding to feedback. Every cohort changes - new projects, new format, emphasis on new skills - which is incredibly difficult to do. It does help them stand out; each cohort gets better.

As a final note, I do think it's important to stress that you will not get everything out of Learn if you do not put in the work. Most career switches take about 18 months. Learn's program, including internship, is 4 months. I do believe that in order to be most successful, you have to put in extra time outside of Learn's allotted 40 hours/week. It is an intense program and requires focus for success. Know that the job market is tough for junior developers or engineers, but if you do the work, it pays off. I encourage you to control your fate as much as possible. Take advantage of learn alum, meetups, their recommended prep work, pairing programming, access to teachers and each of their unique strengths.

Learn is great. They will work hard on your behalf. Full recommendation from me.

Tucker M.
Junior Software Engineer | Graduated: 2019

6/26/2019

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Job Support

"Amazing Bootcamp!"

My time at LEARN Academy was one of the best experiences of my life honestly. I came into it expecting to be good. But it ended up being great! I knew it would be challenging, which it was. I knew it would be hard at times, and it was. And I knew it would... Read More

LEARN Academy and their instructors teach the content in way that makes it stick in your head. It is fast paced but as long as you are willing to put in the hard work and proper effort, you will pick it up very quickly.

Additionally, LEARN has you develop applications to practice the content which really brings everything together. Working with other students in the cohort is one of the best ways to learn because you're all learning the same content, at the same time.

One of the best things about LEARN is their career services. You are taken on a startup crawl in downtown San Diego so that you really get to see what tech companies are really like. After that, they help you practice technical interviews, real interviews, and prep you for your internship at the end of the cohort.

Overall, LEARN Academy is the perfect bootcamp if you're looking to become a software developer. I came into it having went to another bootcamp a few years back and there really was no comparison. LEARN is a hundred times better than the bootcamp I went to before. I recommend LEARN Academy to anyone interested in getting into the industry!

Michael LaRocca
Software Enginner | Graduated: 2018

3/1/2019

Course
Full-time JavaScript

Overall

Curriculum

Job Support

"The Jumpstart to a Rewarding Tech Career"

Hey All!

I came to find LEARN academy having had about 3 years of professional experience in Product Management and Database/Manufacturing operations. I had been doing basic SQL (self-taught) for 2 years, loved it but found I was missing knowledge of the... Read More

Why I chose LEARN?
It's local in SD and I thought it would be nicer to have an actual class room to go to every day with people to interact with. The price was on the lower end of the ones I researched at 12.5k. They offered a guaranteed internship with a local tech company for a month after the 3 month curriculum ended.

What I got out of it?
Ultimately I think the biggest take away was the structure of what Full-stack was. Backend vs. Frontend, linking the two together, translating data into real world UI's. LEARN teaches React on the frontend which is obviously a hot tool and something that a lot of employers are looking for these days. They drill how to do self discovery as there's only so much that anyone can cover in 12 weeks and LEARN did a good job of teaching patterns for learning... ultimately stressing that this is just the first small step on a long journey. You don't go to a bootcamp and wake up a Software Engineer, there is a huge amount of work that needs to be put during and after the program to ultimately realize you're true potential and goals. The people that I saw fail in the process were not paying attention daily, not invested, and somewhat entitled. The individual is responsible for the information they retain and put to use, the institution is responsible for delivering the advertised curriculum. LEARN delivered the curriculum and more... The internship was crucial. I got to do mobile development with React Native, building a full chat interface. This is where you build some industry connections and see how production apps function in the real world. It's a soft entry into job searching and while it's not promised, I saw some of my fellow students get picked up by their internship companies. The career service manager is fantastic. I am a year out and I speak with the past career services manager and the current career services manager regularly. Rob the founder is always open for communication on Slack (I don't know how he finds the time to answer everyone's questions, it's quite amazing). In my eyes they have really created a community here in San Diego, I look forward to the events and I've become friends with not just my individual cohort, but people from all different years and experiences.

Recommendation?

YES. 1000x Yes

JP Engstrom
Graduated: 2018

2/27/2019

Course
Full-time JavaScript

Overall

Curriculum

Job Support

"One of the best decisions I've made"

Attending LEARN Academy was easily one of the best decisions I've made. I took a fairly traditional path after High School by attending University, receiving my BA, and working 6 years in my degree field. However, I quickly became bored with what I was... Read More

About the program:

LEARN Academy is not easy. It is not something you can come to for a few hours a day and expect to understand everything and land a job at the end. It takes hard work and dedication. With that said, the staff and instructors truly care about your education and career and go above and beyond to ensure your success. But it ultimately relies on you and how much you are willing to put into it. Although you can start the program with little to no experience, I highly recommend having at least a basic understanding of HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. The program moves fairly quickly and it can be difficult to keep up if you are not up to speed. Doing your prep work is key!

LEARN's career services and internship program is what separates LEARN from other bootcamps. The career services are with you every step of the way and are always available, even after graduating. It's honestly some of the best career services I have ever received. They will help you with resume building, cover letters, interviewing, networking, etc. At the end of the program, you are given the opportunity to intern at a development company. These are real, local development companies and you go to real interviews.

Overall, LEARN is a fantastic program if you are serious about web development. They will give you all the tools you need to succeed and they provide you with excellent support along the way.

Sea-Anna Thompson
FullStack Developer | Graduated: 2016

2/27/2019

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Job Support

"Jumpstart -> Learn Academy -> Job"

I come from a kinesiology background and needed a change. I had my fitness business online but I decided to take the technology portion of it more seriously. I did not want to go back to college to start all over so I decided, after lots of research,... Read More

Before attending Learn, I saw that they have a weekend course called Jumpstart. I attended and got a really good sense of the course work and how the class would be set up. After Jumpstart, I decided it was going to be a good fit to attend Learn Academy and the bonus is that the money spent on JumpStart goes towards your tuition.

The course is hard by taking a lot of brain power while also staying optimistic/humble. At Learn I felt like I had my classmates and my teachers to help me when I got stuck. Now, after having a professional job as a developer, all the soft skills you need for pair programming and learning in a semi-stressful environment is necessary! I work remotely and I constantly need to know how to work well with others and learn new things with other developers. The team at Learn strives to set you up for success and I am very happy I decided to attend Learn Academy!

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